Kolkata, Oct 14 (IANS) A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday directed the West Bengal Election Commission (WBEC) to erase old data stored in electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in previous elections in wake of the polls for different urban civic bodies in the state, including that of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Howrah Municipal Corporation.
However, the division bench of the Calcutta High Court’s Chief Justice Ravindra Vithalrao Ghuge and Justice Om Narayan Rai directed the WBEC not to erase the old EVM data in cases of three specific wards of the KMC and the Contai municipality in East Midnapore district.
Incidentally, in the previous hearing on this matter on October 12, the Chief Justice’s bench had asked the WBEC whether it was possible to save data from the voting machines (EVMs) involved in the case on a hard disk and whether it was necessary to delete the previous data before using the EVMs in the forthcoming civic body polls.
In response, the WBEC told the court that it was possible to delete the old data.
In the past, several EVMs were preserved due to cases surrounding urban civic body elections conducted in the past.
This year, the polls for several urban civic bodies are scheduled to be held in November this year and the results are expected to be announced in December.
But since the WBEC did not have enough EVMs, they approached the Calcutta High Court for permission to delete the data of the EVMs involved in the case and use them again.
State Additional Advocate General Bilabial Bhattacharya on Wednesday told the court that the Supreme Court’s stay order was applicable only to certain wards under Contai municipality and in case of specific wards in other municipalities they were under consideration of the Calcutta High Court.
Thereafter, the division bench directed the deletion of old data from EVMs except for those in cases of three specific wards of the KMC and the Contai municipality in East Midnapore district.
–IANS
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